Painted Troll Whelps part 1

Here are a set of Troll Whelps to go in (surprise, surprise) my Hordes Trollbloods army. They’re a bit odd, both in terms of fluff and rules. Ruleswise, Whelps are considered Solos even though they can only be taken in sets of five. They rarely start on the table and don’t have any attacks. Instead, Whelps can be ‘shed’ by Warbeasts when they take damage and then eaten later to either heal damage or remove excess Fury. In terms of how this relates to the story, I have no idea. Presumably Whelps don’t literally fall out of damaged Trolls so I assume that they’re meant to ride them in nooks and crannies about their person. I’m also not really sure why the Whelps randomly have overgrown parts of their anatomy, for example the one with the giant finger.

I kept it simple with the painting, as befits the cheapest miniatures in the entire army. The Whelps are quite amusing to paint and have the same kind of silly vibe as GW’s Goblin ranges. I have another set of Whelps to get through so I decided to do one group with light blue skin and the next lot with dark blue. I can’t see me actually needing ten Whelps in any game, but it’s nice to have the option.

Next on the painting table: Stone Scribe Elder.

Painted Satyxis Blood Priestess

Here is the Satyxis Blood Priestess, a caster attachment for my Warmachine Cryx army. She gives allows your Warcaster to upkeep one spell for free which is quite handy for the Witch Coven – I always seem to be short of Focus for them, despite having literally the highest Focus stat in the entire game. Her main draw is on the sword though, as it has a variety of effects beyond the obvious. Notably, she can dispel ongoing effects on units, which can be quite useful to remove some of the more crippling spells from your own units (admittedly at the cost of stabbing one of them in the back).

The miniature is quite nice, if predictably cheesecake-y; it seems de rigeur for ladies in these games to go about with only a bikini top on. Presumably the Scharde Islands are really warm, and that hat is intended to keep the sun off and not to keep the Blood Priestess’s ears from getting cold. Anyway, I stuck with the black and pink theme that I used for the Warjacks and was rather pleased with the outcome. The skin tone worked out well on the body and arms but I couldn’t seem to get it to look right on her face. I stopped painting eyes on miniatures of this size long ago as they don’t really show up at tabletop distance, though their absence is rather strange looking in these blown-up photos.

Next on the painting table: Troll Whelps.

Painted Dire Troll Mauler

This is a Dire Troll Mauler, another heavy Warbeast for my Hordes Trollbloods. The Mauler is the simplest of Warbeasts – no ranged attacks, just glorious face-punching melee action. To make life more interesting, it does come with the Rage Animus which is a pretty important spell for the faction. This allows extra strength to be applied to any model which can turn even fairly modest Warbeasts into heavy hitters, and makes mighty Mulg a hilariously powerful fighter. Since losing the Mauler means losing access to Rage, I try to keep it back as a second wave so that I can make my other Warbeasts hit harder for longer before losing it.

Nothing too complex for the painting; I mainly stuck to the established scheme that I’ve used for my other Trollbloods. I really like the miniature with its huge hands and expressive face. It would probably make a fairly nice generic cave monster for fantasy RPG, or perhaps a villain’s henchman in a superhero game.

I dedicate this post to Azazel’s Dauntless-Diabolical December Challenge. I reckon that the Mauler fits the ‘It’s for Monsters’ criterion rather nicely.

Next on the painting table: Stone Scribe Elder

Painted Hunzakut with Rifle and Light Grenade Launcher

Here is my next miniature for my slowly-growing Druze Bayram Security army in Infinty. This Hunzakut with Rifle and Light Grenade Launcher is actually part of the Haqqislam faction but is co-opted into the Druze for some reason. Actually it occurred to me that Infinity is quite unusual in that the mercenary faction takes many options from ‘main’ forces rather than the other way round, for example in Warmachine. I’ve enjoyed putting the Hunzakut on the table as she’s quite annoying to deal with thanks to her stealth abilities and can deploy near to objectives. This gives me some useful board control tools and also saves having to waste precious orders walking around. Offensively the Rifle isn’t much to write home about but every now and then having the Light Grenade Launcher in the right place can make a fairly entertaining mess of an opposing fireteam (at least, until Joe realised that they don’t need to cuddle each other at the end of each order).

Like so many of Corvus Belli’s miniatures, the pose here is very sweet and evocative, while not being the standard ‘I have a gun and I’m shooting it’ approach common to many games. The colour scheme is the basic white and green to match the rest of the force. I assume that the box in her right hand is supposed to be a mine though it looks a lot like the ghost traps from Ghostbusters to me. Unless I buy any more, I have just four miniatures remaining to complete the army and I will probably do a group photo at that point.

Next on the painting table: Dire Troll Mauler.